Many people are uneasy with the free market. I think that's because they subscribe, implicitly if not explicitly, to the labor theory of value. Workers, people lament, seem not to reap the full and just reward for their labors. Belief in the labor theory puts...
Economics
Trump’s Tariffs Are Economic Folly, Top to Bottom
by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Apr 8, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles
On April 2, 2025, President Donald Trump stood in the White House Rose Garden to declare “Liberation Day”—a sweeping new tariff initiative aimed at reducing the U.S. trade deficit and revitalizing domestic manufacturing. The policy introduces a 10% blanket tariff on...
TGIF: The Great Carl Menger
by Sheldon Richman | Apr 4, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
There can be no doubt among competent historians that if ... the Austrian School has occupied an almost unique position in the development of economic science, this is entirely due to the foundations laid by this one man.... [I]ts fundamental ideas belong fully and...

TGIF: “Liberalism and Capitalism”
by Sheldon Richman | Mar 28, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Ludwig von Mises's 1927 path-breaking work in political theory speaks to the current generations. In section 5 of his introduction to Liberalism: The Classical Tradition, Mises sounds impeccably relevant in describing how the opponents of liberalism and the market...

TGIF: The Income Stagnation Myth
by Sheldon Richman | Mar 21, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Many people, including some free-market advocates, think Americans are materially worse off today than they were in the 1970s. Some subscribers to that view blame globalization, that is, free trade in goods, which means in labor services. By any reasonable measure,...

You’ve Been Living Under Fascism for Decades
by Thomas Eddlem | Mar 19, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles
The late, great essayist Joe Sobran once coined the sardonic idea of what I’ve come to call Sobran’s Law, which, if I may paraphrase it, states: “The U.S. Constitution poses no threat to our current system of government.” (The New York Times wrongly worries...
DOGE and the Futility of Reform
by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Mar 19, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Politics
When President Donald Trump announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, it was heralded as a game-changer. The goal was ambitious: cut $1-2 trillion in federal spending by 2026, eliminating waste,...
TGIF: Say No to a Sovereign Wealth Fund
by Sheldon Richman | Mar 14, 2025 | Economics, Featured, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Donald Trump wants to create a sovereign wealth fund (SWF). It's a bad idea if your standard is freedom, free enterprise, and free markets. That's not Trump's standard, but we already knew that. A sovereign wealth fund is a government-run investment program. Where...